Italian Sausage and Kale Lasagna

When it comes to making dinner, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes your disastrous cannelloni turns into an amazing lasagna. Sometimes recipes don’t go as planned, but you’ve just gotta roll with it.

Today is Secret Recipe Club reveal day! The Secret Recipe Club is a group of food bloggers. Once a month, we are given a blog assignment from which we must choose a recipe to cook and blog about. Everyone posts their recipe on reveal day (today!).

This month, I was assigned the blog A Day in the Life on the Farm, a blog by Wendy who is a retired police officer who moved to the country with her hubby to start a little homestead. It sounds like Wendy and I have a lot in common– she loves cooking, entertaining, reading and travel. But our hubbies have even MORE in common– scuba, hiking, guns and flying planes. Two peas in a pod!

Wendy’s cannelloni look so perfect and awesome. Mine… did not work out so well. I think it had to do with the brand of lasagna sheets I bought (Barilla). When I took them out of the box, they definitely didn’t look wide enough to be able to roll them into cannelloni. I decided to boil them a bit as instructed, thinking they might expand a little. No such luck, and they really weren’t even pliable enough to roll even if they had been big enough.

Never fear! What do cannelloni and lasagna have in common? All the same ingredients… in a different shape. So instead of rolling, I layered. And hot dang did it turn out well. This lasagna rocked! The flavor of the kale really came through which was nice since it was a star garden ingredient. And this was huge! We ate it for a full week. Definitely a winner, and definitely proves that even if you think a recipe isn’t going to work out, all if not necessarily lost. You just need to be a little creative.

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion, and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the Italian sausage, breaking it up in the pan, and continue to cook until the meat is cooked through. Drain excess grease and set aside to cool.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl mix together the ricotta, Parmesan, eggs, kale and Italian herbs. Season with salt & pepper. Stir in the sausage and onions.

Spread about a cup of sauce on the bottom of an 9 x 13-inch pan. Place a layer of noodles over top. Spread a layer of ricotta mixture over the noodles, then a layer of sauce. Repeat layers until ingredients are gone, ending with a layer of noodles topped with marinara sauce. Sprinkle additional Parmesan on top, if desired.

Cover pan tightly with foil, and bake 35 minutes. Remove foil and bake an additional 10 minutes until lasagna is bubbling and top is lightly browned. Let stand 10 minutes before cutting.

Great way to change up the recipe at the last minute. This lasagna looks amazing. I love eating veggies like this in the winter because let’s face a cold salad is just not appealing when it is freezing outside. Happy Reveal Day!!

Thanks for the nice write up Jess. Too bad you and hubby don’t live closer…we could hang out. Glad you enjoyed the recipe and you are right the only difference between lasagna and canneloni is the shape.

To make cannelloni, I often find I have to roll my own pasta in order to get noodles that are wide enough. Just stopping in from Group C to tell you how wonderful this looks, especially with spinach and Italian sausage.

I’ll take lasagna whether its cannelloni, regular lasagna sheets or roll ups. All is good in my book. Last week i made a batch with spinach and was planning on making some again next week. I think I’m trying it with kale. 🙂

You have me craving lasagna now! I’ve made a kale lasagna before and loved it even more than I thought I would, and yours looks so good with the kale and sausage! I love that it’s got lots of ricotta cheese – the cheesier the better when it comes to lasagna, I say!

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ABOUT JESS

Jess is home cook, foodie and proud Navy wife. She grew up in Boston and now lives on the West Coast. She loves to blog, travel, read and write. When she's not working or blogging, she can be found running or relaxing with a glass of wine. Read More…